A Strong Man and his Firecracker
by Beany
Summary: Set from the beginning of X2, a certain firecracker develops her powers, while the steel giant in her life is in turmoil over his feelings. Jiotr [Jubilee and Piotr]
1. Chapter 1

**A Strong Man and his Firecracker**

**Beany**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

A/N: OK, so I had this idea for a while but I really didn't know where I should go with it. I posted it on a message board and I seem to get a lot of hits for it. My friend thought it was good, so I decided to post this here. I know how this is going to go until a certain point but after that I haven't got a clue. Any suggestions you may have are welcomed and encouraged!

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Chapter One

She was bored. So very, very bored. She hated Ororo sometimes. She had been dragged along to this stupid museum trip against her own will to help supervise. OK, so she was twenty one and she was a teacher's aid but still there were enough teachers on this god damn field trip to supervise the students!

She had only recently returned from university. She had managed to graduate early after pulling non-stop cramming sessions. She now had a beautiful degree in social care framed and hanging above the desk in her room.

As soon as she returned, she had been put straight back to work again. Lucky for her she had kept training while she was away at university otherwise Scott would have had her running extra danger room sessions at the crack of dawn!

She was glad she was back home. She had missed everyone while she had been away from the mansion...especially Piotr.

Before she had gone to university, she and Piotr had been the best of friends. They had kept in contact while she had been away. Since she had come back they had hardly had five minutes to themselves. Not that she knew what she could say to him if they did have some time together.

For some reason she kept getting nervous every time she was alone with him. She just didn't know what to say and she was Jubilation Lee, she could take for the entire US if she wanted to.

She was hoping that she would be able to talk to Piotr on this field trip as he was helping to supervise too.

She had been looking around for at least fifteen minutes hoping to catch a glimpse of her steel giant but couldn't spot him anywhere. She decided to pay attention to what storm was rambling on about and hoped to catch up with Piotr later on.

"And while human evolution is still occurring to this day, it's believed that modern medicine and technological advances may have actually slowed down its progress..." Ororo continued to lecture the students. Surprisingly they were paying attention. Not Jubilee though; she had tried, she really had but Ororo was just way too boring so Jubilee quietly slipped away from the group without anybody noticing.

_'Man o man, is this place packed or what?'_ Jubilee thought to herself as she wandered around the museum aimlessly.

She suddenly found herself lost in an exhibition about Homo sapiens. As she skimmed trough the information she started to feel very hot. The heat in her body began to rise and build in the palms of her hands. Jubilee looked down at her hands and noticed that they were beginning to glow.

"Shit!" Jubilee swore under her breath as she looked up and saw that passers by were beginning to notice the glow emitting from her hands.

Jubilee was desperately trying to control the glow but it wasn't working. She clenched her eyes shut in concentration and prayed that to all the gods she could think of to help her control her powers.

She heard a few sparks go off. Nothing big...real tiny ones. She concentrated even harder on absorbing the growing glow in her hands back into her body.

She felt it working as the heat from her hands was slowly subsiding. She finally opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. The glow was gone and they were back to normal.

Jubilee looked up and saw that two girls were staring at her. She decided that this would be the right time to make her exit and hastily turned to leave. As she did so, a pair of hands placed themselves firmly on her shoulders.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Strong Man and his Firecracker**

**Beany**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

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Chapter Two

He had been searching for her all over the museum. Why couldn't he find her? He wanted to speak to her. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a familiar coloured jacket stroll by carelessly.

As he turned around fully, he deduced that he was indeed correct in recognising Jubilee. He smiled while watching her.

_'The jacket'_ he thought to himself whilst grinning. He remembered the bright yellow jacket from years ago. It had been a very snazzy trench coat back then until it met with a horrible accident before she had departed for university.

It had been an accident caused by a certain iced wonder. For some reason Bobby had thought it would be funny to dye Jubilee's coat green. The only problem was it had got caught up in the dodgy washing machine. He remembered pulling out the mangled piece of material and the look in Jubilee's eyes when she had seen it. She had been deeply hurt.

He couldn't stand that look of hurt that had been present in her eyes. So he had taken the ruined coat to a friend of his to see if he would be able to salvage it. His friend wasn't able to salvage the whole coat but he had been able to make a brand new jacket from it.

Jubilee's once oversized bright yellow trench coat had been turned into a short modern day jacket. It was no longer yellow but a deep green. However, the yellow still peeked out from under the green.

Jubilee had been ecstatic when he had given it to her. She had hugged him until he could barely breathe and scattered kisses about his face in pure joy. It was then he realised how special she was to him.

He had been hoping that he would be able to tell her how he felt at some point over the years but he had never found the right time. Now that she had returned to the mansion he was beginning to have doubts in whether he should divulge his true feelings to her. He just wasn't sure whether she felt the same way. Things had been different since her arrival back at the mansion. They had hardly spoken to one another. Well he was about to change that.

Piotr began to push past the throngs of people in the museum to get to Jubilee. As he drew nearer and odd feeling settled itself in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong.

He made his way closer to Jubilee, as he did so; he saw the faintest light coming from her hands. He looked at her face and knew she was having trouble controlling it by the way her face was contorted in concentration.

His walk became a jog and his jog was going to become a full blown run had he not seen Jubilee relax and the glow from her hands fade. Still, he was worried about her.

He reached her just as she was turning around and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Are you alright Jubilee?" he asked.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Strong Man and his Firecracker**

**Beany**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

A/N: I'm sorry that the chapter is short but this story has been giving me a bunch of problems. It's so annoying! You wouldn't believe how long it took me to write this chapter!

**iamhollywood**: Thanks for your review! I'm a big fan of pairings that you don't usually see; kind of how you paired Amara with Todd.

**dizi**: Thanks for the review. This is about as far as my brainwave goes for the moment. I have a few ideas but their more like random images.

**B Oots**: I'm glad you're enjoying the story! I should be updating Portal Home soon, I just need to finish off the chapter and wait until my co-writer gets back from holiday. It should be posted in September as she is gone for a month.

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When Jubilee heard the familiar Russian accent and felt the arms holding her shoulders securely, she couldn't stop the feeling of euphoria that suddenly swept through her body. She became lost in her own world as she tried to decipher the reaction her body was making towards Piotr. 

She peered up at Piotr's face and studied his chiselled features. She could see his mouth moving; he was trying to tell her something but the words weren't making their way to her ears.

"Huh?" she asked, her face projecting her confusion. She realised she must have looked like an idiot but that was the most coherent thing she could say. Piotr let out a sigh, "I asked whether you were alright. You seemed to be having trouble with your powers."

Being able to understand what Piotr had said this time, Jubilee quickly pulled herself together.

"Who me? I'm fine. Perfect, in fact. How are you?" Jubilee could tell that Piotr wasn't buying it. He could always tell when there was something wrong. Before he could have a chance to say anything, she swiftly steered the conversation into a new direction.

"Ya know, I've been meaning to talk to you, in fact, I was looking for you. We haven't had a chance to just hang out so I thought we could, you know, catch up on old times I guess. Whaddaya think?" She knew he would have noticed the topic change but was hoping he would go with it rather then ignore it and bug her about it.

Piotr frowned at the sudden change of topic, he knew there was something that wasn't being said but he also knew that Jubilee would tell him in her own time. He nodded in agreement, "I would like that very much, maybe we…"

A sudden yell from the food court cut Piotr off. Both Jubilee and Piotr looked at one another before heading over to the commotion.


End file.
